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This blog is brought to you by the good old British weather. No, really - it was born on a wet, windy Sunday morning, had the sun been shining it might still be no more than a half-formed aspiration. You see, I'd planned to go biking with some friends - which I see as doing my bit for the environment: y'know, pumping out large amounts of burnt hydrocarbons, and cutting a swathe through the flying insect population of southern Scotland (no doubt somewhere sparrows will be starving because their dinner's splattered all over my leathers).

But the weather, it seemed, had other ideas and, not being one of those bikers who particularly enjoys getting soaked and blown into the path of oncoming traffic, I was left with no option but to make good on a promise I'd made Art-Girl the day before: if the biking was called off I'd start a blog. You see, for some reason best known to herself, Art-Girl finds my writing mildly amusing (here's a tip guys: if you wanna get into a girl's knickers you need neither Donald Trump's bank balance nor Linford Christie's lunchbox, all you need is Woody Allen's sense of humour...though there's always a risk he'll sue you for copyright violation if he finds out you're using it). Anyway, for some months Art-Girl had been suggesting I start blogging and now, thanks to that most capricious manifestation of the Random - the British weather, I have.

This blog does exactly what it says on the tin. Here you'll find my meditations, observations and rants on all sorts of things - some utterly trivial, some deadly serious. You'll find wit (just maybe), wisdom (unlikely, but anything's possible), derision (almost certainly) and mockery (guaranteed) - sometimes all in one sentence. You may find your favourite sacred cows not just mocked but stunned, slaughtered, butchered and served up medium-rare with a nice merlot. You may well find some robust language or other cause for offence. Well, if anything you read here offends you in any way I cordially invite you to stop reading and bugger off! That's what 'grown-ups' do in free societies - if they don't like it they don't read it or watch it. Freedom of expression is an absolute and I'm under no obligation to make sure I don't offend you (whoever you are). I won't mock your race, sex, age, disability or sexuality (well, not unless you're into something really pervy) but all else is fair game.

Now, if you still want to read this blog just come this way...

Friday, 18 June 2010

Spot the (real) green car

Hello Gentle Reader,


You may have noticed (or you may not if you don't give a toss about such issues) an item in the press this week that the Environmental Transport Association (now that sound like a fake charity if ever I heard of one; hmm, this outfit is known as 'ETA' - probably not the smartest move: naming yourself after a bunch of murdering Basque bastards) has named Britain's least environmentally friendly car: the Lamborghini Murcielago. Apparently the Lambo has CO2 emissions exactly five times greater than those of the 'Green Car of the Year': the Toyota iQ. So, the the Toyota pumps out 99 g/km of CO2...hang on a minute, what's up with all this 'g' and 'km' bollocks? What's the bloody Hell's wrong with ounces and miles? Have we suddenly become France and no one's told me?

Anyway, back to the carbon dioxide. The Toyota knocks out 99 while the magnificent Lambo churns "exactly five times more". Why they couldn't just say '495' I don't know - I mean it's not exactly advanced calculus to work it out. Actually, I do know: reporting it as "five times more" is just that bit more scary, particularly for the many sheeple whom our world-leading education system has gifted with numeracy skills worthy of Gordon Brown, rendering them unable to multiple anything other than their broods of feral little benefit-monkeys. But, of course, what ETA aren't telling you is that the Lambo has an engine that's actually six and a half times bigger than the sewing machine in the Toyota. Therefore, per litre, the Lambo is actually the better car in terms of it's emissions: 99 g/km/litre for the Toyota and a mere 76 g/km/litre for the Murcielago. Plus the Lambo's only about a billion times more fun, better looking, cooler, and so on than the iQ, not to mention a soaring testament to the engineering ambition of Man. I mean which of these two would you rather have?

Pig-ugly Japanese wuss-mobile



Thing of exquisite beauty. Scorchio!

And the Lambo's actually not too bad in terms of fuel consumption: a very creditable (for a hyper-car) 21.4 average mpg. That's only a couple of whiskers worse than I get in my Alfa (affectionately known as 'the rabbit'), only don't tell Art-Girl that - she might want me to sell it and buy one of those hideous iQs.

One more thing about the ETA verdict on the Lambo: they claim that in the course of a year it emits CO2 equivalent to felling a football pitch sized forest of trees. Now hang on one sec - that ain't exactly a lot of trees, I mean I could fell that many in a weekend with a decent chainsaw, and I'm a really lazy bastard when it comes to gardening. But it would take the Lambo a whole year to achieve the same result. Not exactly apocalyptically scary is it? Once again the ETA scare tactics fail when exposed to the light of common sense - all they've really managed to establish with that little factoid is that a Murcielago is less harmful for the environment than an angry bugger with a 24 inch chainsaw.

ETA will doubtless be ecstatic that the Murcielago is being retired this year, but worry not - you can guarantee that Lamborghini will replace it with an even more dramatic (and powerful) piece of automotive artistry. Can't wait.


Update: I can find no record of a charity registration for ETA, so maybe they're not a charity per se. But they do want your donations. Ha! There'll be snowdrifts in Hell before they get any of my hard-earned! I'm saving for a Lamborghini.
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